Monte Carlo

Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, 1992. A naval officer in a bar told me on no account to stop for the Federales, "They will steal your car." Oh well, the scenery was nice, the people were great and the beer was cold.

That's the one, thanks!

Thanks Calax, but I must have the wrong game, the one I'm thinking about was isometric where you looked down on your units, it was more of a Mechwarrior RTS. My bad. But the music was awesome, I must have bought it in 1997/1998.

^ I had a cold. The answer was a very hot indonesian curry, the one with beef, potatoes, ginger, garlic, chilli, coconut cream, more chilli, some brown sugar and more chilli. And nuts. I had a large bowl of this with sticky rice and (yes) a shed-load of beer. My morale soared and the cold regressed. Curry is a massive source of happiness and I recommend it to you all with alacrity.

I can't find the stirring, bagpipe-tinged, Braveheart-esque music from one of the old Mechwarrior games for the PC, was it Mechwarrior 2? but it was awesome, would be great if anyone could find it.

I played QoS at a friend's house. Indeed, it was so-so although I'm not exactly an expert at shooters.

Seriously, Mexico is on course for failed narco-state status within twenty years. With all due respect to Hurlie, I'm sure there is normality in plenty of places. Then again, borders built to Berlin circa 1981 standards to keep out migrants are not indicative of a successful country. Corruption, especially when directed by organised crime, stunts the development of any sort of civic, economic or political progress. Mexico badly needs all three. Southern Italy almost ended up here in the 1970's, it took a serious concerted and ruthless anti organised crime effort (and lots of very brave, very dead anti-corruption magistrates) to sort it out. There is probably an entire cadre of politicians in Mexico who have been tainted by corruption for generations and are too far in to get out. Until the political will exists to root these people out the downward spiral will continue. And that will needs to be based on weakening the cartels... which is Catch 22. the US is too scared of upsetting the Latin American countries, and too scarred by their covert involvement there in the 70's and 80's. They need to get involved again.

I take it this game is turn-based, right? You can't real-time with pause lurrrrve. Am happy to be Agony Uncle, I have been married for many years and knoweth The Enemy and her ways.

I am watching as an impartial observer, critical friend, and team medic. However, given the level of karmic awesomeness emanating from this endeavour I find myself unable to actually be a playa.

Does Sweden actually have a tourist industry? Isn't Belgium one of those countries people just drive through? Isn't Holland famous only for seedy weekend trips by rowdy groups of blokes? Australia is the only interesting country on that list.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Vol works in retail.

Simple, don't buy it. I'm not. I'm no averse to DLC but Bio has taken it to a new tacky level of greed.

And as they say in showbiz: you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter!

That's all very well, but to reiterate my earlier point most of these countries are awfully dull. Maybe dullness is the secret metric of happiness.

With the exception of Australia, they're all pretty dull countries, right?

Calm down love, it wasn't aimed at you.

So basically BW sold their souls and he refused to. A bit stretching it, aren't we? I was checking out the bio forums yesterday, and now understand what D. Gaider was replying to. I think the gist was that the original plan for DA2 was indeed to make it fantasy mass effect, but they've scaled back (squad control is still/again in)... I wish I had the time to find that specific thread, but am late from work as is. I'm actually looking quite a lot forward into seeing the demo in a couple of weeks, because I want to see what the new combat system is like (and I can compare it to both DAO ps3 and pc)... And, verily, the fanbois squealed and poureth forth their accusations of 'hater' when the unfaithful pointed out that the intention was 'Dragon Effect' all along. LOL.

Brent Knowles:

^ Congratulations RPGMasterBoo, you are now entitled to call yourself a true grognard / padawan dual-class. We now walk the same bitter, path. Welcome

^ What he said +1

Blitz is good but you have to choose the right commander abilities - infantry scavenge is surprisingly good because it allows an early MG to harvest MP so you can... spam more infantry units. By the time your mortars and nebs are included and you are taking out enemy blobs you start earning serious MP and even munis. I've invested a lot of points in it, it also allows you to build a low fuel strategy which is useful if your opponents are going rifle / ranger spam. They sprint over the horizon expecting to bash up your armour but instead face MGs mortars and MP44 armed stormies who are stealthed up and using bundled grenades. I've also got rockets, which are good for area denial on VPs (I've got aftershock x 2). I made a mistake and invested in heavy armour support, OK I can summon a Tiger, StuG and Ostwind for 1600MP but it's a late game gambit and the Tiger, even buffed, is difficult to micro and inevitably hits pershings, RR armed paras and (yes) elite rangers. Against less skilled players it can be a win button, though. My Blitz strategy is usually - MG / Volks / MG / Volks ... Straight to T3 and a quick puma. The up-gunned puma is ideal for taking out the inevitable early Greyhound. By this point I'm fielding stormies so I didn't need to go T2, they've got 'shreks and stealthed up make short work of Greyhounds and halfies. By this time I've gone StuG x1 and a Neb then start building T4 for armour. The problem is 3x3 when you get an American combined-arms team and you get overrun by superb Ab and ranger infantry. Engie spam is also endemic. I've tried Terror and Defence but I like to get up close and fast in the enemy half of the map, blitz for my money is the best for that. In a 3x3 two blitz and a defence commander work well too.

I've been playing as a Wehr (Blitz) Commander, I'm now level 25 which is where you start unlocking pretty decent army items and hero units. But I'm on a six-game losing streak against endless swarms of infantry and ranger blobs, engie spam, MG nest sim cities and all the other US tricks that give them crucial early game advantage. So I've made a US (Infantry) Commander, concentrating on Rangers and Infantry Attrition. Inf. Attrition basically replaces units killed in battle immediately at your base, it allows you to pile-drive human waves of seriously tooled up ranger spam into the enemy. And my rangers are now pretty buff, can throw grenades, have cheap SMGs, are difficult to suppress. I'm destroying Wehr commanders of higher levels without even cranking out a tank. Am I really good? Not really, although poorly micro'd ranger spam is definitely vulnerable. But there's a balance issue here. Still, there are more Wehr player so maybe it's that my playing style is more geared to USA than Wehr.

Nazis in tight red jumpsuits? Kinky.

Like I was saying, Steam is evil, all of you this-is-the-future moonbats.

Agreed, but try it again after a drink and it staggers into so-bad-it's-good territory.